"The majority of districts may have seen a small decrease in participation," said Jane McLucas, president of the Massachusetts chapter of the School Nutrition Association.

But she says sales are expected to bounce back.

Indeed, in Milford, Carla Tuttle said sales rebounded after a dip during the first few months of the year.

"Kids are picking up that healthy side now," she said. "It took a while but we’re on the right track."

Tuttle added a salad bar to the high school cafeteria and replaced chips with salads or carrots.

Like many districts, chicken patties, hamburgers and grilled cheese are still popular, but lunch rooms must serve healthy sides with those entrées in order to qualify for federal reimbursement money.

Most lunch programs are self-funded so they must balance what's healthy with what sells. Laws about carbohydrate portions changed mid-year, allowing sandwiches to be sold daily. Districts said that helped sales.

One day last week for example, Tuttle said, about a third of the lunchtime students would choose the chicken deluxe sandwich as opposed to the other hot entrée.

Districts that had already begun incorporating healthier foods reported less of a hit. In Ashland, Director of Nutrition Services Lisa Beaudin said younger students don't remember the days of fried foods but older grades don't forget so easily.

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"At the secondary level, it definitely hit us that we’re not serving the chicken patty and the hamburgers. But you know what, it’s the right thing to do," she said.

Hopkinton contracts meals through culinary services group Whitsons, which also works in Franklin. Whitsons representatives two weeks ago told the Hopkinton School Committee their financial picture this year is "bleak."

Last year the breakfast program in secondary grades sold 134 meals per day compared to 97 meals per day this year, said Whitsons District Manager Joe Armenti.

The lunch program for grades 1 through 12 last year sold 1,333 meals per day compared to 1,130 this year.

Overall, that translates to a 5 percent decrease in lunch participation over last year and a 4 percent drop in breakfast participation.

Whereas typically if lunch participation decreases, a la carte sales rise, Whitsons said that isn’t the case now because the Massachusetts law also restricts the sale of so-called "competitive food," which also includes vending machines and booster sales foods.

In all, Whitsons is projecting a $77,000 profit loss this year, it told the School Committee.

Committee Vice Chairman Scott Aghababian called the new rules "overreaching of government regulation."

Whitsons Food Service Director Mary O’Brien said she plans to educate parents in the coming year about the new menus and invite them to lunch to encourage participation.

One particular hardship for districts like Ashland and Hopkinton is the relatively low number of students who qualify for free and reduced-price meals.

In Framingham, Ryan said 42 percent of his students qualify for free or reduced lunch, meaning guaranteed participation and better prices on some food orders. In Milford, Tuttle said a third of her students qualify for free or reduced lunch.

Ryan said a separate issue is whether kids actually eat the nutritious food on their trays.